A chance encounter on a cruise ship on the Danube has brought a sword owned by one of the city’s founding families home to Brockville.

The sword left the city more than a century ago and travelled across the country twice before ending up in the collection of the Brockville Museum earlier this year.

It was presented to Jacob Dockstader Buell in 1866 by the Brockville Infantry Company that he had formed four years earlier.

Buell, part of the third generation of the family that founded the city, was a prominent lawyer, mayor for seven years, local member of Parliament and Crown attorney for Leeds as well as being a captain in the militia company that he founded. His grandfather, William, Sr., had come to the area as a United Empire Loyalist and owned much of the land that was to become Brockville. Jacob’s father, William, Jr., was founder of the Brockville Recorder and also a mayor of the city.

When Jacob Buell died in 1894, the sword passed into the hands of his son, William Senkler Buell, who was a prominent Brockville citizen in his own right. Like his father, he was a lawyer and mayor, and a founder of the Brockville Rowing Club.

William Senkler Buell moved to Vancouver sometime after the First World War, taking his father’s sword with him. He died in 1941 and the sword eventually ended up in the possession of his granddaughter, June Chisholm.

With Chisholm, the Buell sword went on its second cross-Canada journey, ending up in Great Village, N.S.

It was from here that a strange coincidence and the Danube River cruise brought the sword back to Brockville.

In 2013, Ralph and Lynda Newson were taking a European river cruise when they were approached by a couple who were excited to learn that the Newsons were from Brockville.

June Chisholm, who was travelling with her husband Gus, was anxious to talk about her Buell roots and the family connection to Brockville, Lynda Newson said.

“June regarded Brockville as her family homeland,” Lynda said.

The two women got to chatting during the cruise and Chisholm related that she had a bunch of family archives, including the sword.

She and Gus soon were moving from their Great Village home and she wanted to find a home for the Buell family artifacts.

The Newsons are volunteers at the Brockville Museum, so they got Chisholm in touch with Brian Porter, a local historian who wrote a history of the Brockville Infantry Company.

Porter, who instantly recognized the historic value of the Buell sword, helped negotiate with Chisholm to bring the sword home.

It now sits in the museum’s collection along with Buell family letters, photographs and paintings donated by Chisholm.

The Newsons, Porter and museum director Natalie Wood marvel at the strange coincidence that brought the museum volunteers and Chisholm together on that Danube River cruise.